Kazuki opened his eyes to the kind of morning that didn't care whether he lived or died.
A gray sky.A cold breeze.Branches creaking overhead like tired bones.
He lay beneath an old elm tree, back pressed against its bark, breath drifting out in a thin white cloud. His muscles ached from another night spent on dirt and roots. His cloak was damp from dew. His stomach was empty.
Again.
He pushed himself upright slowly.
The forest around him stretched in every direction, endless and quiet. Mist hugged the ground, curling around his boots as he stood. Birds fluttered between branches, scattering at the slightest shift of movement.
Kazuki inhaled, letting the cold air settle in his lungs.It smelled of pine, damp soil, moss.
Not fire.
Not blood.
Not home.
He didn't remember how long it had taken before the nightmares dulled.Before he could breathe without feeling phantom smoke in his throat.Before he could walk without expecting to hear gunshots behind him.
But even now, after four years, he still woke up with the same thought:
Why am I here?
He tightened his cloak and started walking. His steps were soundless, ingrained by years of combat rather than any desire to be stealthy. He moved like someone who no longer expected safety anywhere.
A squirrel darted across his path.Kazuki's eyes tracked it automatically.Old instincts. Old worlds.
He had been fourteen when he woke here.Fourteen, alone, cold, terrified.
The memory always returned the same way.
A blank void.A white glow.A presence without shape or mercy.
"You are not done yet."
Kazuki hadn't understood then.He still didn't.
He had tried to scream.Demand answers.Beg for the fire to take him back.
The presence gave him nothing.
Only a truth he didn't want:
His life had ended.His purpose hadn't.
He had awakened on a hill beneath a foreign moon, in clothes too big for a boy, with a body too small for a man's grief.
No family.No guidance.No direction.
He had wandered since.
He killed only what he had to.Small creatures. Weak ones.Enough to survive, never enough to thrive.
He avoided real monsters.He avoided people more.
The world was strange, but not unknowable.He learned little by little — the names of trees, the ways of weather, which plants were edible, which rivers housed beasts.
But he learned these things alone.
Four years of silence.Four years of empty roads and cold nights.Four years of keeping the past buried behind clenched teeth.
Kazuki stopped at the edge of a ravine and studied the valley beyond.
A small village sat nestled between hills, smoke rising gently from chimneys.Wooden homes leaned against one another like tired friends.Dirt paths wound between market stalls.Children ran through the streets, their laughter drifting faintly through the morning air.
A normal village.
The kind he hadn't seen up close since arriving in this world.
Kazuki stood there for a long time, expression unreadable.
He didn't want to go.
But hunger gnawed at him.Exhaustion pulled at his limbs.And some part of him — the smallest, weakest, most human part — wondered what it might feel like to stand among people again.
Even briefly.
He descended the hill slowly, hands tucked into his cloak, eyes low.
Villagers noticed him immediately.Their gazes lingered.Some curious.Some cautious.None welcoming.
Kazuki kept walking, weaving between small shops and busy streets. His footsteps were quiet. His presence was smaller than someone his size should be. A ghost moving among the living.
He was halfway down the market road when someone spoke.
"You look lost."
Kazuki's steps halted.
He turned.
A girl his age — maybe a year younger — stood behind a small fruit stall. Her apron was patched, her hair tied back loosely, her eyes warm despite heavy fatigue. She held an apple in both hands, offering it with a careful, gentle posture.
"You hungry?" she asked.
Kazuki blinked once, unsure how to respond.
He hadn't heard a human voice directed at him in months.
She gave a faint smile.
"You can pay later. Or not. Just take it."
He hesitated.
Then reached out and took the apple.
"…Thank you."
His voice sounded foreign to his own ears.
Her smile grew a little.
"I'm Lira."
He nodded.
"Kazuki."
"Nice to meet you," she said.
He didn't answer.
But something in his chest — something he thought had died with his first life — stirred faintly.
A warmth he didn't trust.A feeling he didn't want.
Kazuki turned away, biting into the apple with mechanical disinterest.
Lira watched him walk off, then returned to her stall quietly.
Kazuki walked to the edge of the village and sat beneath an abandoned fence, finishing the apple slowly. The sweetness tasted like another life. One he no longer belonged to.
He closed his eyes and listened to the faint sounds of the village.
Voices.Hammers.Footsteps.
Life.
Something he had forgotten existed.
Kazuki exhaled and leaned his head back against the wood.
He told himself he would leave tomorrow.
Then pushed the thought down as the sky faded into evening.
He sat in the quiet, letting the weight of the world settle around him.
Four years alone.Four years drifting.Four years waiting for something he couldn't name.